“It is well within Mr. Obama’s authority to do this because the federal government can decide how to enforce immigration laws. It shows common sense and a smart use of resources to focus on removing dangerous criminals, recent illegal immigrants and repeat offenders instead of young people who had no choice when they were brought here illegally, have deep American roots, clean records and dreams of higher education…

…[Rubio] agreed with [Obama] in principle to granting relief to those here illegally through no fault of their own.

Perhaps Mr. Rubio and Mr. Obama can team up to push Congress to make the Dream Act come true. Mitt Romney, meanwhile, still opposes the Dream Act. It is well past time to make a more sensible and humane immigration policy the law of the land, instead of having to rely on modest, incremental gains that any future administration could undo.”

Click here for more at the NY Times.

Video:

President Obama announces a new Department of Homeland Security policy that will allow certain young people who were brought to the United States as young children, do not present a risk to national security or public safety, and meet several key criteria to be considered for relief from removal from the country or from entering into removal proceedings. June 15, 2012.

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Via Gawker:

Behold the first election-year bombshell: Barack Obama’s White House will announce this morning that it will unilaterally begin granting work permits to as many as 800,000 illegal immigrants who arrived in the United States as children, graduated from high school, and stayed out of trouble with the law. He’s essentially implemented the much-debated DREAM Act, only without the hassle of all that voting in Congress. He should have done this with health care!

According to the Associated Press, the new policy will grant immunity from deportation to “illegal immigrants [who] were brought to the United States before they turned 16 and are younger than 30, have been in the country for at least five continuous years, have no criminal history, graduated from a U.S. high school or earned a GED, or served in the military.” It will also allow them to apply for a two-year work permit that can be repeatedly renewed if they stay out of trouble.